


The Boy Who Loved

by orphan_account



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Reign (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, F/M, What Was I Thinking, frary as jily, obviously great things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-03
Updated: 2014-12-03
Packaged: 2018-02-27 23:23:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2710448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When crowns are swapped for wands and secret relationships abound.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Boy Who Loved

**Author's Note:**

> don't hate me for typos and corniness.
> 
> (also i have so many regrets: namely the horrid play on words that is the title)

"Valois!" McGonagall’s voice echoes down the corridor before the group of boys even set eyes on her. The boy in question, a lanky seventh year with a mop of blond hair and a loose maroon and gold tie, spins on his heel to face her.

“It wasn’t me, I swear,” he says before muttering, “this time.”

“Funny,” she says dryly as she approaches the three Gryffindor boys. She hands them each a piece of parchment, which he quickly scans as she adds, “Your schedule. You three were conveniently not in attendance at breakfast this morning.” The three boys exchange looks, their gazes flickering away from their professor’s stern eye. She is far from stupid and she knows the fourth floor corridor filled with rabbits is inextricably linked to their absence at breakfast. 

“Do try to come to meals in the future,” she says and though it sounds like a suggestion, it isn’t. “Wouldn’t want you to go hungry.”

“Of course, Professor,” Bash says, straightening as Leith snorts. Professor McGonagall raises one eyebrow and Leith immediately sobers, Bash remaining ever chipper.

After deciding that she’s glared at him enough for this conversation, turns to Francis and says, “Your Head Girl is looking for you. She wants to plan your next meeting,” and walks away.

“ _Your_ Head Girl.” Bash smirks, nudging his brother once McGonagall is out of earshot

“Stuff it,” says Francis, but a smile is tugging at his lips.

“What other reasoning would Dumbledore have for putting you two together?” Leith asks as they begin to make their way back to the common room. “I mean, everyone in the school is just waiting for her to give in. Why is Dumbledore any different?”

“ _Ha, ha_ ,” the blond says sardonically. “If only Mary felt that way.”

“Oi, I’ve seen you snog Olivia D’Amencourt and Emmeline Vance, for Merlin’s sake. Mary Stuart isn’t any different,” Bash says, slapping him on the back. Francis scratches the back of his head uncomfortably as he chews on his lip.

“’Cept, she is though,” he says quietly but neither of his friends hear him as Leith gives the Fat Lady the password. The other two boys begin to talk about Quidditch and the upcoming tryouts as they enter the common room, immediately walking over to their self-proclaimed couch by the fire. Francis throws himself on it, his head falling back against the plush red pillows.

When there’s a lapse in their conversation, Leith nudges Francis and juts his head towards the door. Francis’s hand flies to his hair, making it even more disheveled, if that were even possible.

And there she is.

Brown haired and long-legged as always, Mary Stuart is a goddess in Francis Valois’s eyes. Her brown eyes are lit up with her laugh as she throws a look over her shoulder at Kenna. She shoves said friend away when she leans in and taunts her before making her way to a table in the corner. The four girls—Greer, Kenna, Aylee and Lola—begin to spread their work out on the table but Francis can only watch as Mary swipes Greer’s quill when she isn’t looking. He hasn’t seen her since the welcome feast when she walked past him with nothing but a cool gaze. She’s found a way to completely ignore him for the two days they’ve been back but classes start soon and he knows she wants to go into the Department of International Magical Cooperation at the Ministry so she must be taking at least some of the same classes as him.

“Mate, she’s looking,” Bash says and Francis snaps himself out of his daze to see that she is very pointedly staring at him right back. A blush creeps up his neck as he struggles to control his heartbeat.

“Oi, Stuart,” he says before he can stop himself. She raises one perfect eyebrow.  _Wow, her eyes are brown_ , he thinks to himself before remember he’s supposed to actually say something. “McGonagall said you were looking for me?”

“Ordinarily, I’d never actively look for you if I had a choice between you and the Giant Squid but fortunately for you,  _Valois_ , she’s right,” she calls across to him, setting her quill down and walking over.  _She’s walking over, she’s walking over, breath, Valois, breath._ “Dumbledore really seems to have lost all sense.” Her eyes point to the gleaming Head Boy badge on his chest. Francis swallows.

“Evidently because who wants a head girl with her wand up her arse,” he says and the words are out of his mouth before he can stop them.  _Fuck, you’re supposed to make her like you, not want to hex you even more_. He can see the hurt flash across her face quickly but it’s gone before he can even process it.

“If you’re going to behave like that, then I can plan patrols by myself,” she says before spinning around and walking back to her table, leaving a faint whiff of lemons behind.

“Nice to see some things never change,” Bash says lightheartedly, but Francis only ignores him as his eyes follow Mary back to her table. They spend the rest of the night on the couch, attempting to do homework but Bash more often than not gets up to flirt with Kenna and Francis more often than not studies Mary over Transfiguration. When most of the first years have gone up to bed and it’s really only the seventh years left, their heads bent over textbooks and their foreheads crinkled with stress, Mary’s friends begin to close their textbooks.

“You go on, I’ll be up in a moment,” she says, scribbling on her parchment.” The other girls nod and Greer places a reassuring hand on her friend’s shoulder before following Lola, Kenna and Aylee up to the seventh year dormitories. His friends begin to do the same and uses the excuse of more work to stay down there. Bash looks at him warily but doesn’t say anything and the two boys leave their friend alone on the couch.

And then it’s just them.

He can hear Mary’s chair scrape against the wooden floors and the sound of her flats slapping across them. And soon she’s walking around the chair Bash has just vacated and she’s crawling over him, her knees pressing into the couch on either side of his legs. His hands splay across her hips as she adjusts herself.

“Hi.”

“Hi.” Her lips feel soft against his, her fingers moving through his curls in her familiar way.

“I missed you.”

“I missed you more.”

“Oh God, don’t be like that,” she says, rolling her eyes.

“Like what?” he asks innocently.

“All clichéd and ‘sweet boyfriend-y.’”

“I am a sweet boyfriend!” he says indignantly.

“Even if you are, we’re not a very normal couple.”

“And whose fault is that, exactly?” He raises his eyebrow at her.

“Forgive me if I don’t want the entire school to know that you finally ‘wore me down,’” she says. “I can hear Kenna’s snark already.”

“Yeah but I didn’t wear you down, did I?”

“No,” she says, pressing her lips together as her eyes crinkle. “No, you didn’t. You have your deflated ego and personality change to blame for this.” She gestures to their general position and Francis looks affronted.

“Hey, you liked me before I became less of a ponce!”

“Did I?”

“Don’t pretend you didn’t see the allure of the great Francis Valois,” he says, waggling his eyebrows suggestively.

“Ah, yes, just like every girl at Hogwarts, I was just  _dying_  to get into your pants. My anger towards you was only a mask for my sexual frustration. How have I not admitted that after years of hating you, I finally gave up and gave in to your devilish grin and roguish good looks?”

“I always knew it but it’s nice to hear you say it,” he says, shrugging. “Tell me more of my devilish grin and roguish good looks.”

“In your dreams, Valois,” she says as she rolls her eyes.

“Only if you’ll accompany me, Stuart.”

“Also in your dreams.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t be so sure about that…” He trails off as he drags her lips back to his once more, his hands grasping her hips. Her fingers knot in his hair as both their eyes drift shut and he can feel her heart slamming against his own chest, pulling her closer. Her whole presence floods him as it always has—that whiff of lemon that follows her everywhere, the way he suddenly feels very stable when she touches him, even during those days back in fifth year when she preferred Professor Binns to him and she would shove past him in the hallways. He can taste her simple strawberry chapstick: the muggle brand, of course, because Mary Stuart moisturizes her own lips, thank you very much and doesn’t need a charm, no she does not. His hands move from her hips up her back to hold the back of her head, their lips moving seamlessly together.

But despite the ease of their current situation, his relationship with Mary has never been easy. She hated him for six years, for Merlin’s sake. And even when she stopped hating him last year, it wasn’t like she could just show it. No, Mary had to be complicated and dance around the issue until he found her in a corner of the library, asked her what the Charms homework was and was suddenly attacked by her lips.

It had surprised him to say in the least. Of course, Mary had been friendlier all year but Bash’s constant “Give it a day, she’ll be back to cursing your existence once more” didn’t help much. And of course, Mary didn’t make it any easier  _after_  the kiss either, but he supposes she wouldn’t be Mary if she made  _anything_ easy. The following weeks until summer holidays were filled with frantic avoidance and awkward eye contact in the hallways.

It was only when his family decided Mary and her mother should be invited to their summer house in the south of France. A month, with their rooms across from each other and Bash off on his own adventure: there was no room for avoidance and their lack of friends meant boundaries were completely unnecessary.

The absence of their friends changed everything. Mary was more open; she would touch him without grimacing and even smile at him in the morning. They found themselves playing two on to quidditch in the yard, going down to the beach and into the village when their parents had an event to attend. Seeing Mary laugh and being the one to make her laugh was the single greatest joy of Francis’s summer. But being friendly wouldn’t last forever, not with the way Mary treated Francis for all those years and not with the way she kissed him in the library. They spent the rest of that month sneaking between their bedrooms, somehow unnoticed by his parents.

But that haze couldn’t last forever either, as Mary kept reminding him. They would be going back to school soon, where everyone assumed Mary despised him. He knew her friends well enough to foresee the endless questions and he knew his friends well enough to foresee the endless taunts. And so they (Mary) decided that they would keep the relationship a secret. Francis had thought this meant they would slowly become friends but when he offered her a smile on the platform, she not only walked passed him but glared at him before whispering something to Greer.

And so begun the year of empty classrooms and secret passageways Mary had never even entertained the idea of. Of course, she never entertained the idea of straddling Francis Valois on the couch in the Gryffindor Common room but here she is with none the wiser.

He finally breaks from his reverie when Mary pulls away, her hair fanning over her face. She runs her long fingers through it, her lip caught between her teeth. Francis feels his heartbeat quicken at the simple movements and struggles to slow it all down. She shifts on his lap.

“I should go up,” she says but her tone says otherwise. “Kenna will come barreling down any minute and…”

“Yeah,” he says, looking away. “I know.”

She slips off his lap regretfully, slinging her bag over her shoulder. He does the same, shoving his work in it messily as she waits for him. Her hand is outstretched when he’s done packing up and he takes it eagerly. They walk to the stairwell slowly, their fingers laced together. After climbing the flights up to the seventh year dorms, he pauses between the girls’ stairwell and the boys’. Her arms wrap around his torso as he pulls her closer and her stiff body tells him something is weighing on her.

"Francis, I—" she starts and she doesn’t need to finish for him to know what’s coming.

"No, don’t, it s’all right," he says.

"How? How do you still keep me around when all I do is push you away? How can you put up with me acting like I’m ashamed of you?" While he knows some parts of her want to extract herself and run back up to her dormitory and pretend they never happened, the other parts hate herself for it. He runs his thumb across her cheek softly, guiding her eyes back to him.

“Because this,” he gestures to their position, “is better than nothing. I quite like you Mary Stuart. And things are good.”

“I quite like you too, Francis Valois.”

“What a miracle,” he says and presses his lips to hers quickly before she smiles up at him, turning around to go into her dorm. Their hands stay entwined for that split second of her pulling away and there’s a moment where his fingers cling to hers before her back turns and the door is shutting behind her.


End file.
